The original lawsuit was brought by Michael Berger - known as Magic Mike - a magician who performed at the downtown center. He sued the city and Seattle Center in 2003.

Berger objected to regulations issued in 2002 that required street performers to obtain a permit, to wear a badge displaying the permit, to not aggressively seek donations, to limit performances to 16 designated locations and to not engage in "speech activities" within 30 feet of most visitors to Seattle Center.

"First Amendment protections are robust, yet at the same time fragile and precious," said Judge Marsha Berzon in the the majority opinion. "Often government restrictions on speech seem perfectly reasonable at first glance."

Berzon said that any regulation of speech on government property needs to be "carefully calibrated" to solve real problems.

"In other words, while some -- among them, the dissenters in this case -- might prefer a 'Truman Show' version of pristine placidity in our public parks, our First Amendment jurisprudence rests on a very different vision."

Judge Alex Kozinski, in the dissent, strongly disagreed with the majority. He said the rules adopted by Seattle Center were carefully considered to address territorial disputes between street performers and citizen complaints.

"The majority here manages to strike down almost all of these rules without bothering to give Seattle an opportunity to present evidence justifying them, " Kozinski wrote. "Instead of settling for effective regulations, the majority demands perfection. But perfection is hard to find in rules written and applied by mortals."

A spokeswoman for Seattle Center, Deborah Daoust, said the center hadn't determined its next step. But she noted that visitors wouldn't see any immedaite changes. "This case has been going on for quite a number of years and we have not been enforcing the segment of the street performer rules that have been contested."

Doug Honig, spokesman for the ACLU of Washington, said the court correctly recognized that Seattle Center is a public park and parks are traditionally where Americans go to engage in free speech acitivites.

"In recent years there's been a troubling trend trying to limit free speech activites in parks by turning them into the eqivalent of commercial zones," Honig said. "The court rejected that view of Seattle Center. We're gratified by the ruling. We think it's good ruling."

Carl Tobias, a consitutional law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said in an e-mail it was possible that the United States Supreme Court could hear the case. He said the majority opinion was a strong First Amendment ruling but that the dissent "suggests localities will have difficulty crafting ordinances that will pass muster."